A Little Fall of Rain
by Jimaine
Summary: The team gets some bad news about Ororo, and it's a few touching I hope! scenes seperated by the lyrics from Les Miserables 'A little fall of rain'. R&R, am I any good at this? Neither XMen nor Les Mis belong to me. Warning: very sad.


A Little Fall of Rain

  
  


Ororo/Eponine:

Don't you worry, my Wolverine,

I don't feel any pain,

A little fall of rain,

Can hardly hurt me now.

You're here,

That's all I need to know.

And you will keep me safe,

And you will keep me close,

And rain will make the flowers

Grow.

  
  


"Ya'd better skip out fer a while, elf. The others find out you smuggled 'Ro away, and they're not going to be happy with ya."

"Ach, don't worry about me, mein fruend. Call Amanda when you're ready to come home," Kurt Wagner, Logan's longtime best friend, gripped his shoulder. "And you must come back, Logan."

"After all these years, elf? I couldn't help myself."

"I will see you again, mein fruend, if I have to track you down myself."

Logan chuckled, though his laugh was as harsh and dry as the African plain he stood on. "I know. Now get goin', Kurt."

"Auf widershen!"

Kurt glanced back towards the pair one last time, tears running down his furred cheeks, and made his way back to Westchester.

Next to Logan, Ororo sighed happily. Wolverine felt like growling - this was really no time to be happy. Then again, he mused, perhaps it's the best time to be happy. 

  
  


Logan/Marius:

But you would live, 'Roro,

Dear God above!

If I could close your wounds

With words of love . . .

  
  


Kitty fainted. Jean collapsed sobbing into Scott's arms, Kurt cried out a handful of phrases in German, Gambit slowly sunk to the floor, and Rogue gave a strangled sob, racing up to her room.

But Logan only froze.

Somehow, he'd known this was happening. 'Ro hadn't been herself lately, as if she could almost sense what was happening. It took Beast's words to really hit things home, however. And at first, even after that shocking announcement, it hadn't really seemed like anything was wrong. She was still Storm, still the virile leader and uncompromising friend she had always been. But Logan began hanging around the fringes of things, where ever she went, and every once in a while Kitty would run from her, locking herself in her room in a fit of tears. 

And then things had really begun changing. Within a month, Ororo Munroe was confined to a bed in the medilab, and it wasn't even Scott who was leading the team, or Jean, it was Kurt. Scott and Jean had run, because Jean couldn't keep her telepathic barrier up against the onslaught of despair from her teammates, the people she already had trouble blocking out. Nightcrawler had lead Excalibur for a time, and though he was one of Storm's best friends, he was the only one who felt he'd known her long enough to step aside.

Finally, not even a week ago, Logan had been prowling around the medilab, unsure of what to say or how to say it, when Ororo's voice interrupted him. "Logan?" came her faint voice. 

"'Ro?"

"Who else, in this goddess-forsaken pit?" the weather-witch remarked sarcastically. Then, her voice strained, as if she wasn't strong enough or sure enough to trust him, she said "Logan. Please . . . help me. I have to see the sky."

"'Ro -"

"I don't care, Logan!" it didn't matter that her voice was half of what it normally was; Logan could hear it just as well, and caught every nuance. "I can't . . . I can't stay down here any longer. It's driving me slowly but surely insane!"

So Wolverine helped her out of the bed, to the elevator Professor Xavier used, and up to the first floor. She sat in the elevator, panting from an effort that should not have been an effort. "Ororo -" Again, Logan wasn't even allowed a word in edgewise, and she hauled herself into an upright position and out of the elevator. Sniffing for any scent of the other X-Men, Logan supported most of the woman's all-too-little weight as they made their way to the front door. Neither spoke. Neither had the need, or the energy.

Finally, reaching the mansion doors, Logan flung them open. A perfect blue sky met them, both blinking the aftereffects of artificial light out of their eyes. Not a cloud in the sky, and robin's egg blue to boot. "Your doing?" Wolverine inquired, breaking their silent reverie.

"No, Logan," she whispered. "I have no power past that of nature. This is her doing. What I could never surpass. And never truly wished to." She settled to a bench on the front lawn, her sickly-thin figure cutting a sharp contrast to Logan's when he sat down next to her. "Logan, I - "

For once in his life, Logan cut off the woman who had been friend, leader, advisor, and conscience.

When they parted, Ororo smiled kind of crookedly at him and settled down against him, her head on his shoulder.

  
  


Ororo/Eponine:

Just hold me now,

And let it be,

Shelter me,

Comfort me.

  
  


"I still think you're crazy, mein fruend."

"Kurt!" Logan paced. He knew what Ororo wanted more than anything else, and why. If Kurt couldn't understand, how was he going to help her?

"As I was about to say, I still think you're crazy, but I'll do it anyway. Run diagnostic, and tell Ororo that if she wants to slip in any last lessons for her successor, now would be a good time."

"I'll make sure to pass that on," Logan murmured, and turned in the direction of the Blackbird.

"And ask her . . . Ask her about Remy. He's really falling apart, Logan. It's her choice to tell him or not," Kurt threw after the retreating Wolverine.

  
  


Remy/Marius:

You would live a hundred years

If I could show you how,

I won't desert you now.

  
  


"Remy . . ."

"Ororo!" the Cajun mutant whipped around. "You still as good a t'ief as you ever was, if you can sneak up on me like dat. What you doin' outta bed, petite?"

Ororo smiled sadly. "If I stay in that bed another instant, I will explode. Or the medilab will, although that might inconvenience all of you."

"I understand, 'Ro."

Ororo favored him with another sad, slightly ironic smile. "No, my friend, you don't," she took a deep breath; it rattled in her throat. "I'm leaving."

"What?!" that was the last thing Remy had been expecting. If he wasn't so afraid he'd hurt her, he'd have taken the wind-rider by the shoulders and shaken some sense into her. 

"I'm leaving," she repeated. "I'll die just as fast anywhere else as here. And I want to see my homelands just once more. I know all of you, all my X-Men, in face, mind, and heart. There's just the one thing left for me to do."

"Take me with you," he whispered, holding onto his friends hand as if he would never let her go.

"I can't. There has to be someone here to keep them from killing Kurt, and trying to find a way to kill Logan," she hugged Remy goodbye, and tears fell from red-on-black eyes. She gave him one last look. "Take care of Rogue, and Kitty. And find Jubilee."

Remy nodded, and Ororo embraced him for the last time, before making her way towards the Blackbird.

  
  


Ororo/Eponine:

Rain can't hurt me now,

This rain,

Will wash away what's past,

And you will keep me safe,

And you will keep me close,

I'll sleep in your embrace at last!

  
  


The flight from Westchester, New York, to somewhere in Kenya was a long one, especially for a trio of friends who were closer than family, and all the family they were ever likely to get. Kurt didn't once turn on the autopilot on, as steering the SR-77 Blackbird manually kept his mind off what he and Logan were doing.

He could hear the low murmurs of Logan and Ororo talking, and even laughing, from behind him, and though at moments he wished he could share in whatever joke they laughed at, he knew both too well to drop the autopilot and join them. So the first time on the journey that he got out of the pilots seat was to inform them - as if they didn't already know - that they had made it.

Ororo came out first. Instead of speaking, she simply hugged Kurt, and whispered "Listen to Amanda. And don't feel too bad about disobeying Xavier's orders. Listen to your teammates, but know when it's your decision to make. Thank you, Kurt. Life would have been far less interesting without you."

She turned and walked out of the Blackbird as Logan and Kurt said their goodbyes, and felt truly at peace the instant she had one foot on each side of the line - up to her waist in African grasslands, with Logan's arms wrapped lightly around her.

  
  


Ororo/Eponine:

The rain that brings you here, 

Is heaven-blessed,

The skies begin to clear,

And I'm at rest,

A breath away from where you are,

I've come home

From so far . . . 

  
  


Logan had never seen land so untamed, so wild. No wonder Ororo had been a goddess in these lands, before becoming an X-Man. The wind whipped across the plain, and Logan smelled storm clouds building in the distance.

  
  


Duet

Ororo: - Logan:

Don't you fret, - Hush-a-bye,

M'sieur Logan, - Dear Ororo

I don't feel any pain, - Don't feel any pain,

A little fall of rain, - A little fall of rain,

Can hardly hurt me now - Can hardly hurt you now.

- I'm here

  
  


They stood together and watched the sun fall slowly from it's position overhead until the sunset blazed in scarlet glory. Life wandered across the windswept savannah, in all it's myriad forms. Including one pair of mutants who, for the moment, wanted nothing more than this simple peace.

Ororo turned her brilliant sapphire eyes on Logan, meeting his brown ones with a jolt. "Thank you," she whispered. "I couldn't - I couldn't have done this alone."

"Sure ya could. You're the strongest person I know."

"Not this strong. Logan . . ."

Now it was Logan's turn to smile, irony and sadness etched into his features. "You love me. I know," he kissed her, with what strength he dared. "I love you, windrider."

As if waiting for those words of release, Ororo faded away, a smile on her face.

  
  


Ororo: - Logan:

That's all I need to know 

And you will keep me safe, - I will stay with you

And you will keep me close, - 'Till you are sleeping,

And rain - . .And rain

Will make the flowers . . . . - . .Will make the flowers

- Grow . . .


End file.
